15 years isn’t such a long time…is it?

I began my career with Idealogy (then Selling Ideas) in 1993 as a ‘fresh-faced’ graphic design graduate.  After much ear bending for Simon D, I was given the invaluable opportunity to start my career in the design industry and to be involved in all aspects of a leading creative services organisation. After 5 very happy years I had a change of direction (if you can call it that!) and became a mum, accompanied by more ear bending for Mr D. However, by this time, I had my foot firmly on the creative career ladder and went on to expand my experience and knowledge in the creative sector.

Recently, I’ve returned to Idealogy - 15 years on, and maybe 15 years wiser. So, after all that time, what’s changed?

The Industry is changing, and so must we!

From Selling Ideas, to Idealogy, to The Idealogy Group. Our business has been forged from 20 years of change. And change is the only constant when you work in a service industry with a real personality crisis.

Beginning life as a creative shop, growing up through brand and marketing, to a place where business change and digital consultancy was our ‘facial hair’ moment! Our history is peppered with our own cultural and skills-based changes – let alone those of our clients. Stand still long enough and the world moves past you. If you snooze, you lose!

Now in our 21st year, Idealogy has decided to face the next phase with a new set of Shareholders, Directors and Managers. The current team has grown to 6 with the inclusion of Simon Johnson as Digital Director and Darryl Akerman as Design Director. Both are long-term Idealogy stalwarts and they will take on clearly defined management and Board responsibilities, in support of Paul Wright, James Surridge, Charlotte Blake and Simon Dover, the Directors and decision makers of the last 4 years.

The strategy? To continue to evolve the business - building growth and profitability in the key areas of digital services and brand and business consultancy. At the same time, creative output is always high on the agenda, as Idealogy continues on it’s path to being World Class – a claim underpinned by the growing levels of international business the group is now involved in.

So, the world is changing. Our industry is changing. And we’ve added key people to the top of the business to reflect the success we are having in Customer experience.

The next generation Idealogy is now set for new challenges – and there’s the other constant… whatever our view of the future we know the questions will be different from those we are being asked today.

But we’re ready!


Posted by Simon Dover

20 years old. So why do we have an Anniversary crisis to cope with?

Typical!

It didn’t escape our notice that, as we approached our 20th birthday in August, we had a few difficult decisions to take. Which I suppose, as adults, shouldn’t present too many problems but it has become symptomatic of a life spent in a shifting landscape, ducking and diving, trying to flesh out an approachable personality and identity.

And that’s hard for a small business, especially one that opened as Selling Ideas the very day the headline read “it’s official, we’re in a recession”. There’s a beguiling symmetry there don’t you think?

Back in 1989, we could have been accused of recklessness, and indeed, the early years were tough as we learned to balance the rigours of running the new Selling Ideas business, with the needs of a demanding client base. But we soldiered on and we grew, putting on weight and muscle in all the right areas, developing our vocabulary, learning how to walk confidently amongst our peers. The family album had lots of attractive portraits and group pictures as we gazed, clear eyed, beside our friends and colleagues, at the flashing bulb.

We were standing tall and learning how to work well and play with others. And we were becoming independent.

But, like all adolescents, we weren’t 100% sure of who we really were. Life was so much easier in the early days, when all anyone wanted to talk about was good ideas, and we had plenty of those to sell.

With maturity comes a fresh set of beliefs and intellectual fog. We weren’t afraid of the questions we were being asked or where those questions came from – and our world had clearly become a more consumerist and commercial place. What we were scared of was our ability to consistently come up with the right answers – because that meant we had become something else, something quite different from the persona we knew and had grown comfortable, arguably too comfortable, with. Idealogy had become a comprehensive vision.

So we changed, and in all honesty, we’ll continue to adapt as the world changes around us. Today’s incarnation as Idealogy may be quite different again in another 5 years, but that’s life and, as we all know, change is good!

Now, back to the crisis!

Is a 20th anniversary a China or a Platinum, because that will make a huge difference to the party theme? Are we going to drink tea from a saucer or are we all going to show up in blonde wigs? Decisions, decisions…….

Answers and comments please.

Posted by Idealogy